Zen Buddhism

[Angrboda]

I think you're really onto something there and it just got me thinking - apologies if this is just in effect rephrasing what you've already said, which I think it might be - what if there isn't that much of a difference between what we'd usually term subconscious and conscious? Maybe it's all 'available' to consciousness in theory but in practice the subconscious level stuff is essentially buried under much more prominent conscious level stuff... that the conscious level stuff is what rises to the top in this 'messy, winner-take-all process'. So where meditation both improves concentration and the ability to notice subtle differences in things... as where mindfulness is about noticing things you never usually pay any attention to, it could metaphorically pick through the canopy to the little plants on the forest floor... i.e. notice what is usually subconscious. Because I'm sure I've read somewhere that accomplished meditators can gain control of usually subconscious processes like the heart rate and I was also thinking about the fact that my sister was ill recently with an iron deficiency and in the weeks prior to going to the doctor she made several drastic changes to her diet for no particular reason other than a gut feel - cutting out caffeine and then even decaf tea, and then once she had been to the doctor the recommendations were exactly the same as what she had done - that caffeine inhibits iron absorption and also that the tannin in tea does the same even if it's decaffeinated. I think that was an example of subconscious intuition based on the chemical needs of her body. So I was just thinking that those sorts of subtle chemical needs don't usually make it to consciousness in anything other than a vague, indirect way... such as craving bananas if you need potassium etc... but perhaps if anything is serious enough it will find a way to reach the canopy of consciousness, so that it is a candidate for focus selection by what you suggest is the pre-frontal lobe. In other words perhaps all is equal theoretically for attention and therefore that our usual distinction between conscious and subconscious is only incidental rather than a strict separation between two different types of processes.

Sartre observed that consciousness has two parts -- intentionality, or consciousness 'about' things, and consciousness that we are conscious. Subconscious things seem to lack this second component in that we are not really aware of the subconscious mind which we have no immediate perception of.